My lovebird Sweetheart gets mostly fresh foods, with some pellets, and a little bit of fresh, human-grade seed. However, if the seed gets over 15% of her diet, she starts to gain weight. The seed I feed is mostly used in her foraging toys and as training rewards.

I have several rescued budgies, and make my own seed mix for them, mainly proso millet, canary seed, red millet, oat groats, with a selection of other brassica and lettuce seeds added. In addition, since I live on an organic truck farm, they have a lot of greens, plus fresh willow and sugar maple branches to chew the bark from, and about 6 different kinds of grass seed heads. In winter they get parsley, carrot tops, bell pepper, and birdie bread that I make for them which has dehydrated vegges ground up and mixed with egg in the shell. Oh, and they LOVE soaked wheat berries as a treat!

I no longer have caged birds as pets but I love birds so I usually keep a baggie of mixed seeds in my purse to feed wild birds that I happen to meet.

A weird story: My daughter and I went to Disneyland and sat in a quiet place where we sat some sparrows looking for food. I got excited and pulled out my baggie of seed and sprinkled some their way. They hopped on over, looked at the seed and hopped away. My daughter thought it was hilarious and ironic because I kept forgetting to bring my seed when we went and the day I finally remember to bring it, they rejected it.

Why? These tubby birds preferred to eat buttered popcorn and french fries that the tourists left behind! sigh.

I have a lot of birds, Conure's, Ringneck's Plumhead's, Rainbow Lorikeet's, Cockatiel's and Budgie's. I breed and hand-rear the chicks which I sell to private individuals. The one thing I tell the new owners is. If you want your pet to live a long and healthy life, you must feed a well balanced diet. I feed a small amount of a variety of seed, which has pellets, dried fruit also added. My birds also get daily a selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, depending on the season. My Lorikeets also have fresh nectar mix daily.